Spec Ops Chief Sketched Out bin Laden Raid … in 1995

Choppering 25 Navy SEALs into a populated area covered by the air defenses of an unsuspecting sovereign nation. Fast-roping them down into a fortified compound containing unknown numbers of enemies. Killing or capturing the world’s most dangerous terrorist. Extracting them safely and flying them to Afghanistan the same way they came. No one can say the plan to take down Osama bin Laden was timid.

But it had a template. In 1995, William McRaven published Spec Ops, a collection of commando case studies he used to formulate what he called a “theory of special operations.” Since then, McRaven, now a three-star admiral, rose to lead the terrorist hunters of the Joint Special Operations Command, which killed bin Laden. His book, at least among the general bookbuying public, has fallen into obscurity. But the Cliff Notes were on display in Abbottabad on Sunday night.

Spec Ops isn’t exactly a field manual. But it might be considered a guide to audacity. McRaven wants to know what distinguishes a successful mission from a doomed one. Spoiler alert: “Brave men without good planning, preparation and leadership are cannon fodder in the face of defensive warfare.”

At the heart of all special operations is asymmetry. Operators attack “fortified positions,” confronting a superior force. It’s a recipe for being mowed down — unless you achieve what McRaven calls “relative superiority.” It’s a slippery concept, easy to identify after the fact and more difficult to isolate before or during a mission. Basically, it’s the point at which the commandos seize the advantage, leveraging their unique assets — “technology, training, intelligence, etc.” — to turn their opponents’ superior force into a disadvantage. It doesn’t guarantee victory; but not having it guarantees failure.

What’s individually necessary and jointly sufficient for success? According to McRaven: Keeping it simple. Keeping it secret. Rehearsing thoroughly. Surprising the enemy. Getting in and out quickly. And having a clear — and simple — purpose.

Counterintuitively, what’s needed for all of those to knit together into relative superiority is a small force. “Because of their size,” McRaven writes, “it is difficult for large forces to develop a simple plan, keep their movements concealed, conduct detailed full-dress rehearsals (down to the individual soldier’s level), gain tactical surprise and speed on target, and motivate all the soldiers in the unit to a single tactical goal.” No wonder insurgents and special operators understand each other.

The longer the attack takes, the more it risks failing. McRaven even constructed a chart to explain:

Notice McRaven doesn’t call for dialing back the audacity. “Special operations forces do not generally have the luxury of attacking the enemy when or where he is unprepared,” he writes. Too many tacticians focus exclusively on gaining the upper hand fast, thinking that surprise alone is the determining factor of success. But “what good would it do to surprise the enemy, only to be ill equipped to fight him?”

Of all of the case studies in McRaven’s book — the 1970 Army liberation of the POW camp in North Vietnam’s Son Tay; the Brits’ sub attack on the Nazi battleship Tirpitz in 1943; etc. — the one that might most resemble Abbottabad is the Israelis’ 1976 liberation of hostages on board a hijacked Air France flight in Entebbe, Uganda. (If you want to read an amazing account of Entebbe, check out Israel’s Secret Wars by Ian Black and Benny Morris.)

Israel had to secretly insert commandos, from the air, into a guarded airport terminal packed with civilians to neutralize ten (it turned out to be seven) terrorists, after crossing an airfield peppered with untrustworthy Ugandan sentries. The famed Sayeret Matkal rehearsed tirelessly for 18 hours, reduced the number of men on the mission, and relied on freed hostages for an understanding of where the terrorists were. When the operation occurred, Israeli commandos darted “from room to room in search of terrorists,” despite the mortal wounding of their commander, Lt. Col. Jonathan Netanyahu. While three hostages died, the Israelis killed the terrorists, several Ugandan guards and extracted the remaining passengers onto C-130s in under two hours.

You can practically hear McRaven preparing for Abbottabad in his book’s praise for Entebbe. “During the execution phase, the Israelis gained surprise by using boldness and deception to momentarily confuse the Ugandans, and by moving quickly on the target, they were able to secure the hostages within three minutes of landing at Entebbe,” McRaven writes. “Throughout the three phases, the purpose of the operation was emphasized again and again, and it meant not only the rescue of the hostages, but the honor and respect of the state of Israel.”

Compare that with Abbottabad. Restoring the honor of a country vexed by a terrorist who’d escaped its grasp a decade earlier? Check. A simple plan with a clear purpose? Check — kill or capture bin Laden. Secrecy? Most of the U.S. government didn’t even know, let alone the Pakistanis. Thorough rehearsal? At Bagram Air Field, the SEALs practiced on a model of the compound they built. Surprise? Most definitely. Speed? The whole thing was over in 40 minutes. No wonder: McRaven designed the plan.

If there’s one element of Abbottabad that didn’t go by McRaven’s book, it’s that the commandos don’t appear to have been outnumbered at the compound. It’s possible that McRaven didn’t know how many terrorists were inside. But the plan is a conspicuous departure from Spec Ops‘ emphasis on the strengths of a small force. Chances are McRaven won’t explain himself during his imminent confirmation hearing to lead U.S. Special Operations Command.

McRaven’s method won’t guarantee success. Special operations are always at risk of what Clausewitz called the “frictions of war.” He’s about integrating his principles to give wild-ass plans a chance of succeeding. Hanging over every audacious special operations raid is the specter of the failed Iranian hostage rescue. But McRaven writes that the Iran mission violated his principles from the start: it required more helicopters to reach Teheran; but that risked exposing the plan; as would extra rehearsal time. “If a plan is complex it will require extraordinary security,” McRaven concludes, “and an overabundance of security hinders effective preparation.”

During a briefing with reporters on Tuesday, the chairwoman of the Senate intel committee, repeatedly called the raid “gutsy,” and with good cause. Much remains unclear about Abbottabad, and some of what we thought we knew is being quickly revised. But there’s a blueprint for McRaven’s plan, and he published it sixteen years ago.

Update, 7 p.m.:: Now that CIA Leon Panetta clarified the number of SEALs on the ground for the raid, I’ve changed the post to reflect it.